This invention relates to an armor piercing projectile and, more particularly, the invention is concerned with providing a relatively lightweight projectile wherein a drawn metal monocoque jacket provides rigid support for a long thin penetrator core by means of a low density filler which is disposed between the core and the jacket thereby effectively concentrating the plurality of the mass in the long thin high density armor piercing core.
Heretofore, projectile designs contained a hardened steel penetrator that was the full diameter of projectile and shorter than the projectile length to reduce weight so that the initial launch velocity would be high, thus obtaining maximum initial penetrator energy. However, because of the large diameter of the projectile penetrator, a large amount of armor would have to be displaced to allow penetration. Therefore, the armor absorbs a large amount of the penetrating energy of the projectile so that a thinner armor prevents passage of the projectile. Also, by making the armor of greater hardness, the larger diameter steel projectiles would be shattered on impact thereby reducing projectile penetration.
It would be most desirable to provide an armor piercing projectile which includes a long, thin core so that only a small amount of armor would be displaced and less energy would be required to penetrate thicker armor. However, a thin core normally requires a massive structural support making the overall weight of the projectile very heavy. If the support is not sufficiently rigid, flexure and bending of the penetrator will result in poor launch, flight and impact conditions. Thus it can be seen that the support means for the thin penetrator should provide good rigidity while at the same time providing centering support with only minimal addition to the overall weight of the projectile.